New Antalya Rock Climbing Guidebook

by Mark on October 8, 2018

The best place to go sport climbing in Turkey is undoubtedly Antalya, and in particular the crags of Geyikbayiri and Olympos.

Geyikbayiri is the largest sport climbing area in Turkey with well over 700 routes, and is situated only 25km from the busy tourist city of Antalya. The quality and beauty of the rock at Geyikbayiri, plus Antalya’s climate, and the relative ease of transportation are the prime reasons that pull climbers to the area. The climbing is on superb limestone rock, with many features ranging from grey limestone walls with small crimps, overhanging walls with stalactites and tufas, to pocketed walls that have been described as a “mini Ceuse”. The main crag is 1.5km long, which along with several other buttresses, provide 100’s of routes across at all grades from F4’s to F8’s.

Further south is another excellent sport climbing area at Olympos, with several crags. Here there are over 300 routes on perfect limestone rock across all grades. The rock climbing has slabs with small pockets that require technical moves and lots of balance through to tufas and huge roofs. Some of the crags also have the advantage of only being a few hundred metres from the beach. This area also has several walls that are suitable for deep water soloing (DWS) with the sea being deep enough to attempt routes from 8 to 20m long.

The new 6th edition of the Antalya rock climbing guidebook has just been published. It describes nearly 1,200 routes at Geyikbayiri, Olympos, Citdibi, Kas, and Cirali areas. All the routes are shown on full colour photo-topos, along with route length and the number of bolts.